Page 32 of Haunted

I have forgotten my purpose. I know only her and how she tastes. Let her be my sole sustenance for eternity. Please. Nothing else.

She has bewitched me. There’s no other explanation.

Then I understand her hunger when she claws at me with ferocity while ripping and pulling at my clothing.

I’ve unchained a hungry demon.

A demon who wants to forget.

Without meaning for a kiss to progress in such a heated fashion, I find myself at her mercy.

I am powerless.

As I meet her advances, a blistering drive tears through me. I want her to consume me until nothing remains. Burn me as I burn you.

I should draw back, but my inner dragon is dying to emerge, the inner beast that being a dragon rider has infused into my makeup.

I have no control.

What control I should have possessed, the empress shreds it without a thought.

A beast is born.

A demon and beast devouring the flesh of one another…

Merciful Creator, what am I doing?

She has become the seductress. She has twisted my loyalties.

This was her plan, because now I know—

I will give anything to serve the empress until my last breath.

25

I can’t bear to look at the monster at peace in her slumber.

She wrapped herself in her sheets, naked, and pulled me to herself, refusing to let me go. The sheet must be a barrier so I don’t burn her again.

As I lie beside her and study the angry scratches on my arms in the dim light of the room’s sconces, the truth sinks in.

She has ensnared me. She used me. This must have been her plan from the moment I entered her room.

It doesn’t matter what really upset her. She used the situation to her advantage.

I must flee to sever the threads the seduction has bound me with.

So I dress and leave her in the night while she’s asleep.

I debate not ever returning to Caer.

26

I’m sick with thoughts of my transgression for weeks. I’ve broken my word; I don’t return every week. I can’t bear to be in her presence.

Yet I ache to be.

She’s twisted my mind.

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